


Leap of Faith

by Moontyger



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gratuitous Game References, M/M, post-Warlords of Draenor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 14:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3771325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moontyger/pseuds/Moontyger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite everything, Anduin finds he can't stay angry at Wrathion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leap of Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aestivali](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestivali/gifts).



Some things can't be forgiven.

Or so Anduin kept telling himself, particularly whenever he thought about Wrathion. It was certainly what his father believed. In theory, that should have made it easier to believe it himself, to hold firm to the conviction that this particular betrayal crossed a line: a line that allowed for no retreat, permitted neither explanation nor excuse. (Not that Wrathion had offered either.)

But Anduin wasn't his father. The reasons he chose to become a priest rather than a warrior were many, but one of them was that he believed in forgiveness. The Light redeemed, offered not just second chances, but as many as needed, extending forgiveness even to those who seemed most mired in darkness. 

Even if he believed that, even if he could forgive, he should at least be angry. And he had been, at first – angry and hurt besides, stung not just by the wreck of the attempt of three different factions to decide a just punishment for the orc who had cost them all so much, but by the more personal betrayal. It wasn't just the Prince of Stormwind Wrathion had betrayed; it was Anduin, the person as well as the position. They had been friends of a sort; even now, Anduin was sure of that. Friends, when friendship was rare for either of them, and Wrathion had tossed it aside like the glass he'd shattered when he left the Tavern in the Mists that final time.

While he was angry, it had been easy not to miss him. 

But time had undone the emotion, picking at all the weak spots and loose threads until the whole thing unraveled. One day he'd realized that while his anger might be directed at Wrathion, it was really himself he was angry with. Yes, Wrathion had betrayed him, but what had he expected? Even as they spent time together, passing the days while he recovered and Wrathion waited for his Champions by playing games and talking, Anduin had known Wrathion couldn't be trusted. He'd been suspicious, wary of the Black Prince's motives, always looking for the truth beneath words he assumed were lies. At least, he had been, but that kind of suspicion was hard to maintain with such constant contact and at some point, without realizing it, he must have let it slip. If familiarity had led him to let down his guard, he had only himself to blame.

And after that epiphany, Anduin found himself wondering why Wrathion had done it – not the instinctual question of “how could he?” but the actual motives behind helping Garrosh escape. There had to be a reason; despite the well-earned reputation of the Black Dragonflight, Anduin had never seen Wrathion act on malice alone. His reasoning wasn't always sound (at least, in Anduin's opinion it wasn't), but then, Wrathion was still quite young for a dragon and prone to overconfidence.

He'd read the report from Admiral Taylor's garrison while still in the depths of his anger; he read it again now and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The garrison had ended in tragedy, but Wrathion seemed to have little to do with what had happened there. Still, he'd been up to something, though it was unclear just what that was. He might have simply been recruiting, but nothing in the report hinted at the intended purpose of those recruits. It was the only recorded sighting of Wrathion on Draenor, but all it told Anduin was that Wrathion was still alive and still working for some purpose.

With this in mind, Anduin set out to write to Wrathion. For the first attempt at communication either of them had made since Garrosh's escape, it ended up being surprisingly mundane: one of the many charm bracelets citizens gave the King of Stormwind during Love is in the Air, along with a brief, impersonal note explaining the origins of the holiday. 

It wasn't what he'd originally intended to send, but after he'd finally decided to write, weighing the pros and cons and possible consequences for days before ever setting pen to paper, Anduin found himself without the slightest idea what to say. He couldn't simply ask Wrathion why he'd done it; they'd spent enough time together that he knew direct questions rarely produced straight answers. Even if Wrathion gave such an answer, how could he trust it? And he couldn't say that he missed him. However true it might be, Wrathion would know that Anduin would never write him out of simple loneliness. After all, he'd had plenty of practice being lonely; their brief friendship couldn't erase the years of isolation that preceded it. 

But conversing with Wrathion was much like playing Jihui with him; even though it was the point of the game, Anduin had often had to trick Wrathion into cooperating with him. The point here was merely to start a conversation, so it didn't matter so much what he said as that he bothered to say it at all. 

Which was fine as far as it went, but it didn't actually suggest a topic. After the sixth or seventh false start, Anduin went wandering, hoping an idea would come to him with the change of scenery. He was in one of the back hallways primarily used by the keep staff when he saw the pile of Lovely Charm Bracelets abandoned there: a somewhat pathetic heap of tangled blue crystal left on a table with no one else in sight. That was no surprise; at this time of year, they were everywhere. So many were gifted to the King every day that the servants couldn't dispose of them fast enough. Anduin had tried to help by coming up with ideas for alternate uses for them, but that only accounted for so many; most still had to be discreetly thrown away. He picked up one of the bracelets and fingered it idly, then smiled to himself as he imagined Wrathion dealing with the problem, bracelets piled in corners while his followers offered still more.

When he returned to his room, he took the bracelet with him. Sending it was little more than a momentary impulse, but somehow it seemed fitting, even if he wasn't sure he could explain exactly why. Anduin added the note when he realized that Wrathion had little reason to know anything at all about the holiday. If he were avoiding settlements as one would expect of someone in his position, he likely wouldn't have even seen the decorations to wonder about. A random bracelet out of nowhere would likely seem suspicious, not just peculiar, and he didn't want Wrathion to dismiss it out of hand.

Deciding what to send, however, was only the first obstacle. Ensuring the package reached its intended recipient was a bigger problem. Not only did Anduin not know Wrathion's current whereabouts, no one in the Alliance did. But he didn't need to know where Wrathion was, merely to find someone who could pass a letter, and while not precisely _easy_ , that was at least _easier_. The thing about recruiting was that all those recruits were possible weak links. Humans were a social race; at least some of them had to have friends and relatives with whom they remained in contact.

It took some minor abuse of his access to SI:7 records and some behavior completely unbecoming a Prince (one day, Anduin hoped to not have to mind control loyal citizens, but that day had clearly not yet arrived), but he found a woman whose sister he suspected was now working with Wrathion and convinced her to include his package with hers.

After that, there was nothing to do but wait.

Given the convoluted nature of his informal postal system as well as the distances likely involved, Anduin wasn't surprised not to have received a response by the time Noblegarden rolled around, but he sent a second note along with a few chocolate eggs anyway, with the vague intent of continuing the theme he'd chosen almost at random.

He'd considered how Wrathion might reply, including the possibility that he wouldn't, but under the circumstances, Anduin thought the chances of him replying in person were quite slim. Perhaps he should have known better; Wrathion had always liked defying expectations. No doubt Anduin looked gratifyingly shocked when the dragon whelp landed on his book, then took briefly to the air again, barely allowing enough time for Anduin to move it out of the way before he changed forms and landed back on the library table with a far-too-audible thud.

“What are you doing here? Are you crazy?” Anduin had had many imaginary conversations with Wrathion and none of them had begun like this. It was telling that despite everything, his first response was to worry for Wrathion's safety, but it was also an advantage he hadn't intended to offer someone he knew he had to think of as an opponent.

From the satisfied edge to Wrathion's smile, he'd noticed, but he didn't choose to point it out. “I could ask you the same thing. Surely you didn't go to such lengths merely to educate me about human holidays.” He glanced around the library, which was thankfully deserted at this hour, before looking back at Anduin. “Though from the looks of things, I suppose you might be that bored.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Then talk.” Wrathion leaned back onto his hands, apparently perfectly at ease despite the fact that he was a wanted criminal in the keep of a King who hated him.

“Not here.” Anduin glanced at the doorway – still empty, but not likely to remain that way. Guards patrolled and people were coming and going in the keep at all hours, both day and night. It didn't help that the library was a public area; Wrathion couldn't be safe here for long. Someone would see him and sound the alarm and then not even Anduin would be able to protect him. “We'll have to go to my room.”

“You _have_ missed me.” Wrathion smirked, but he obligingly changed forms without even being asked. 

Anduin considered trying to smuggle him through the halls, but he couldn't imagine getting away with it. Wrathion's whelp form was small, but not small enough to hide easily without preparation, and the problem with being the Prince was that he couldn't pass through the halls unnoticed. Given sufficient warning, perhaps he could have disguised one or both of them, but there was nothing here he could use. Despite his suspicion that it was a bad idea, he gave Wrathion directions to his room and left him to fly to the window on his own while he made his way there by the more usual route. Unless Anduin wanted them to be caught (or to turn Wrathion in himself), there were no other realistic options, though he wished briefly that he'd chosen to apprentice to the Kirin Tor instead of Velen. Teleporting would be awfully handy right about now.

When he reached his rooms without alarms being raised, he knew Wrathion must have made it without being spotted, but Anduin couldn't really begin to relax until they were both inside the bedroom, door and window firmly shut. The keep staff would assume he was either sleeping or didn't want to be disturbed, so it was as private as they were going to get.

Anduin took what felt like the first deep breath he'd had since Wrathion's unexpected arrival and fixed the dragon with a stern look. “You could have just sent a letter.”

Wrathion was back in human form and had commandeered the chair at the small writing desk rather than one of the pair by the currently empty fireplace, leaving Anduin to sit on the bed or have his back to him. “If I had, could you have been sure it was from me?”

“I'm certain you could figure out a way.”

“I wasn't sure about yours. I didn't expect you to write at all and if you did, I thought it would be something more personal.”

“Yet you came to Stormwind anyway. And you're wearing the bracelet.” He'd noticed it in the library; it was a little large for Wrathion's wrist, so it tended to slide down onto his hand and call attention to itself, the crystals seeming somehow brighter against his dark skin.

Wrathion shoved it a bit further up his arm in a careless sort of way, but Anduin thought he was pleased. “It was a gift, was it not? Though I admit I hadn't thought blue crystal hearts were your taste.”

“They're not, but those are the bracelets everyone gives for Love is in the Air, at least lately. When I was younger, the bracelets used to be gold. Friendship bracelets, they called them. I'm not sure why they changed to the charms.” Anduin only knew about the old bracelets because he'd seen servants and guards in the keep with them. He'd been too young to participate in the holiday much himself and no one had thought to give him one. He didn't hold it against anyone; Love is in the Air wasn't really a holiday for children. But he did sometimes wish he'd had a chance to celebrate in the older way at least once before they changed it. If he had, maybe he'd have sent Wrathion one of those bracelets instead. But maybe not; while Wrathion would probably have preferred the gold, Anduin thought the crystal suited him.

Wrathion seemed to agree; he held up his wrist and turned it, admiring the way the charms sparkled in the lamplight. “Were you planning to send me something for every holiday?”

“No,” Anduin replied, though he'd considered it, only abandoning the idea when he'd concluded nothing about Children's Week suited Wrathion in the slightest. “Did you want me to? I didn't think you were that interested in human culture.”

Eyes still on the bracelet, Wrathion said, “It has its merits.” But he lowered his arm and leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand as he looked directly at Anduin, suddenly intent when he'd been all assumed casualness until this moment. “You said you wanted to speak with me. I'm listening.”

“I did.” But instead of speaking, Anduin fell silent, taking the first chance he'd really had to have a good look at Wrathion. He'd grown taller, but that was no surprise. They both had, but while Anduin's shoulders had widened in a way that left little doubt that he was truly Varian's son, Wrathion seemed thinner. Prouder, too, which Anduin wouldn't have thought possible, but there was something in the stiffness of his spine and the way he held his shoulders that hadn't been there before.

“Have you changed your mind already?”

Anduin smiled at the question. _There_ was something familiar. “For a dragon, you're awfully impatient.”

“As you pointed out, I took a risk coming here.”

But they both knew Wrathion thrived on taking risks, always favoring the bold strategy over the cautious one, so Anduin didn't take the remark personally. “How are you doing, Wrathion?”

“Don't you mean _what_ am I doing? I'm sure you didn't write just to ask about my welfare.”

“Can't it be both?” Anduin hadn't realized it until he'd actually seen Wrathion again, but even while he'd been angry with him, he'd been concerned as well.

“Not usually.” Wrathion's eyes seemed a darker red than usual and his lips were pressed together in a thin line as he regarded Anduin. Finally, he sighed and added, “But perhaps from you. I remember now why I liked you. You're a very unusual person, Anduin Wrynn.”

Anduin wasn't quite sure how to reply to that, but Wrathion continued before he had to come up with something. “I hadn't thought you'd want to see me again. Most would never have forgiven what I did to you.”

“Maybe I haven't.”

Wrathion inclined his head a little, acknowledging the point. “You're a better politician than your father, so perhaps. But I don't think so.”

“But you don't understand why I forgave you.” Anduin was certain that he didn't; forgiveness scarcely seemed to be in Wrathion's vocabulary, at least not when applied to himself. Much like apologies; Anduin hadn't missed that he still hadn't received one. This discussion of forgiveness was the closest Wrathion had come to even hinting he knew he'd done something wrong.

“No,” Wrathion admitted. That was a little surprising; Wrathion had never liked admitting ignorance.

“Is that why you came?” That part still didn't make sense to Anduin. Yes, Wrathion liked taking risks, but the risks he took weren't usually stupid ones. Coming to Stormwind Keep in person, however, especially now, was not only stupid, it was exceptionally so. Whatever they gained from being able to verify the source of their correspondence couldn't possibly be worth the price he might pay.

Instead of giving a straight answer, Wrathion asked a question of his own. “Why did you send me the charm bracelet? Your note said something about a traditional token of respect?”

“Affection and respect, is what I think I wrote,” Anduin corrected, though he was entirely unsurprised that Wrathion had skipped the first part of that.

“Yes, that's it. When I received it, I thought you meant something by it.” Wrathion got to his feet, but instead of pacing as Anduin half-expected, he stood there, still and silent, for long enough that Anduin was surprised to realize he was hesitating. For the first time since he'd arrived, Wrathion seemed unsure – unsure and unexpectedly young, inexperienced and vulnerable in a way Anduin knew they both tried very hard not to be, especially where anyone could see them. Vulnerability and inexperience were qualities princes could ill afford and that seemed even more true for the solitary black dragon prince than it was for the human one.

Anduin hadn't said anything, but almost as soon as he'd noted it, Wrathion's hesitation vanished. It was as if somehow Anduin's silent notice was enough to make up his mind. He took the few steps necessary to sit on the bed beside Anduin and turned to face him, deliberately making eye contact before he spoke. “I wanted to reply directly to the hints I believed you were sending. It wasn't something to be trusted to a letter. Besides, if I hadn't come in person, I couldn't have done this.”

Before Anduin could react, Wrathion leaned forward and kissed him. 

He was a better kisser than Anduin would have expected (he had a momentary mental image of Wrathion making Right help him practice and had to stifle an entirely inappropriate laugh), but a demanding one, disinclined to follow someone else's lead or settle for something less than enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, however, wasn't a problem; Anduin felt that he had been carefully _not_ thinking about kissing Wrathion for a long time.

When Wrathion pulled away, it was reluctant, and he left one hand resting on Anduin's thigh. From someone else, it could have been a meaningless gesture, but from Wrathion, who'd never been one for casual touches, it seemed possessive.

Anduin struggled to clear his head. All he wanted to do was kiss Wrathion again, but he knew he shouldn't. Not here, at least, and not now. That way lay waking up with a black dragon in his bed, followed by discovery and consequences far worse than any mere scandal. “You came here, knowing they might kill you, just to kiss me?” He hadn't realized he was going to say it until he heard his voice and realized he'd spoken aloud.

Wrathion frowned at him, but he hadn't removed his hand. “It sounds foolish when you say it like that.”

“That's because it is! You can't come here again.”

“And here I thought you enjoyed it.” Wrathion moved his hand a little, stroking instead of just resting there, and Anduin quickly covered it with one of his own to hold it in place. If he let that continue, he'd never get Wrathion out of here.

“That's not the point! It's too dangerous.” Which was both true and why the rest of what he said was entirely stupid. “You can't come here, but that doesn't mean we can't see each other. I'll meet you somewhere.”

“I'm sure your guards will like that.”

“I'll slip out. I've done it before.” Though never for something like this. Anduin didn't _think_ his father would have him declared a traitor if he were caught, but he couldn't be certain.

“So you'll take the risk instead of me?” Wrathion's tone suggested he found this highly insulting.

“We'll both be taking the risk. You're wanted just about everywhere, remember?” And so would anyone harboring them, so they wouldn't be frequenting inns or anywhere else typical of clandestine affairs. Anduin wasn't sure where they'd go when nowhere was actually safe, but he'd think of something.

Wrathion nodded, accepting his point. Anduin wished he felt less disappointed by this recognition of what was, after all, only good sense - or at least better sense than letting him stay. “If that's how you want it. You know how to reach me.” Wrathion stood and started for the window, then paused with his hand on the latch and turned back. “But don't take too long.”

“I won't.” Before he could think better of it, Anduin pushed himself onto his feet and hurried over. One last kiss couldn't hurt.

But when it was done, he stepped back, forcing himself to let Wrathion go. One of them had to be the sensible one and, of the two of them, there was no question that it had to be him.

He stayed by the window after Wrathion left, looking out long past the point that he could even pretend a tiny black whelp was still visible, winging off into the darkness all by himself.

“All that and he never told me what he was up to.” If Wrathion had been seeking a distraction, it seemed he'd found an effective one. Anduin shook his head at his own foolishness, but he couldn't seem to stop smiling.

When he wrote to Wrathion again, he should tell him he'd changed his mind, but he already knew he wouldn't, and not because he still didn't have answers for the questions he'd really wanted to ask. It was the kind of risk Anduin had told himself he wouldn't take again, not after the last one had nearly killed him, and this time he was going into it knowing exactly how foolish he was being. But not even Anduin could be cautious all the time. So he'd jump, hope Levitate wouldn't take him too far off course, and have faith that somehow, he and Wrathion would both land safely on the ground.


End file.
